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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

They are horses, not ponies!

Unlike in other countries, Mongolian horses run free in the wild. We don't put fences around them, so they have all the space they need. Fortunately, Mongolian pastureland has been blessed with decent rainfall this summer, hence grazing animals were spoiled to some degree.

Mongolian horses are small, compared to other breeds in the rest of the world. They are horses, not ponies! The strength of our tiny horses is incredible, and it is even stated in our eldest literature, dating back to the XII and XIII centuries, where other countries admired how Mongolians have managed to conquer the biggest empire in the whole world with a transportation of such tiny horses. Genghis Khan himself once said: "It is easy to conquer the world from the back of a horse".

Well, we, Mongolians, adore our livestock - sheep, goat, camel (Bactrian breed with two humps), cow and horse - and horse is admired above all. Horse-riding is indeed central to our culture, where nomadic people still use horse as a way of transportation, and urban city people ride horses for mere fun in the weekends and holidays; but we are also known for our long-distance' horse race we hold every year during Naadam Festival in July.

I absolutely adore horses, hence I dislike eating horse meat. It would feel like I'm eating my dog (I've never eaten a dog meat, btw). Rest of the Mongolians share the same idea, I presume, but we do eat horse meat if there is a lack of meat from other livestock, which is highly unlikely, since we have more livestock than our population! But Western culture has influenced us in somewhat, hence people do eat horse-meat, just like how French women would enjoy it.